NASA Daily News Summary
For Release: July 1, 1999
Media Advisory m99-133
Summary:
-- NASA Technology Spurs New Environmental Business
-- Video File for July 1: Globular Cluster -- Swarm of Ancient Stars
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NASA TECHNOLOGY SPURS NEW ENVIRONMENTAL BUSINESS
Don Sumner's long trip from Texarkana, TX, to NASA's Stennis Space
Center in Mississippi was the beginning of a journey that led him to
find new uses for a NASA-developed technology. His experience,
background and daydreams took a giant leap during a demonstration of a
NASA-developed portable video imager. The imager detects "plant
stress," signals of how plants are reacting to poor environmental
conditions, such as insufficient nutrients, inadequate watering,
disease or insect infestation. Sumner knew that past attempts to detect
plant stress had been too labor intensive to be cost effective. He
believed that if a farmer or forester could efficiently and routinely
analyze plant stress, savings in harvest time, fertilization costs and
crop losses could substantially increase profits.
Contact at NASA Headquarters: Michael Braukus, 202/358-1979;
Contact at NASA Stennis: Lanee Cooksey, 228/688-3341.
Full text of the release:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/1999/99-072.txt
If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will
e-mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list.
Index of 1999 NASA News Releases:
http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html
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ITEM 1 HUBBLE HERITAGE PICTURE: GLOBULAR CLUSTER -- SWARM OF ANCIENT
STARS
ITEM 2 HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE: A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH MARS (REPLAY)
ITEM 3 MARS IMAGES TO HELP SCIENTISTS FIND LANDING SITE FOR 2001 LANDER
(REPLAY)
ITEM 4 FASTRAC ENGINE (TRT 05:34) (REPLAY)
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ITEM 1 HUBBLE HERITAGE PICTURE: GLOBULAR CLUSTER
This stellar swarm is M80 (NGC 6093), one of the densest of the 147
known globular star clusters in the Milky Way galaxy. Located about
28,000 light-years from Earth, M80 contains hundreds of thousands of
stars, all held together by their mutual gravitational attraction.
Globular clusters are particularly useful for studying stellar
evolution, since all of the stars in the cluster have the same age
(about 15 billion years), but cover a range of stellar masses. Every
star visible in this image is either more highly evolved than, or in a
few rare cases more massive than, our own Sun. Especially obvious are
the bright red giants, which are stars similar to the Sun in mass that
are nearing the ends of their lives.
For further information, see:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/26/index.html
Contact at NASA Headquarters: Doug Isbell, 202/358-1547;
Contact at Space Telescope Science Institute: Ray Villard, 410/338-
4514.
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ITEM 2 HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE: A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH MARS (REPLAY)
Taking advantage of Mars's closest approach to Earth in eight
years, astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have taken the
space-based observatory's sharpest views yet of the Red Planet. NASA is
releasing these images to commemorate the second anniversary of the Mars
Pathfinder landing. These images were taken between April 27 and May 6,
when Mars was 54 million miles (87 million kilometers) from Earth. From
this distance the telescope could see Martian features as small as 12
miles (19 kilometers) wide. The telescope obtained four images, which,
together, show the entire planet. Each view depicts the planet as it
completes one quarter of its daily rotation.
For more information see:
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/1999/27/index.html
Contact at NASA Headquarters: Doug Isbell, 202/358-1547;
Contact at Space Telescope Science Institute: Ray Villard, 410/338-
4514.
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ITEM 3 MARS IMAGES TO HELP SCIENTISTS FIND LANDING SITE FOR 2001 LANDER
(REPLAY)
One of the original objectives of the Mars Global Surveyor's Mars
Orbiter Camera when it was proposed to NASA in 1985 was to take pictures
that would be used to assess future spacecraft landing sites. Images
obtained since March provide the highest resolution views of the planet
ever seen. Over the past several months, science personnel have been
examining the new data to develop a general view of what Mars is like at
the meter-scale. These investigations will help scientists pinpoint a
landing site for the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander.
For more information see:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mgs/msss/camera/images/6_25_99_landingsites/ind
ex.html
Contact at NASA Headquarters: Doug Isbell, 202/358-1547;
Contact at Jet Propulsion Lab: Mary Hardin, 818/354-0344.
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ITEM 4 FASTRAC ENGINE (TRT 05:34) (REPLAY)
Item 4A Fastrac Engine Tests
The Fastrac engine, a low-cost rocket engine that will power the X-
34 technology demonstrator, successfully completes a full duration
engine test at NASA's Stennis Space Center, Miss.
ITEM 4B Fastrac control room/b-roll
Control room footage during the firing of the Fastrac engine at
Stennis Space Center.
ITEM 4C Fastrac engine b-roll
Footage shows Fastrac engine assembly and load.
Item 4D Interview: Danny Davis, NASA Project manager, Marshall Space
Flight Center
Contact at NASA Stennis: Lanee Cooksey, 228/688-1957;
Contact at NASA Marshall: Dom Amatore, 256/544-6533.
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The NASA Video File generally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9
p.m. and midnight Eastern Time, but may be pre-empted by mission
coverage or breaking news. NASA Television is available on GE-2,
transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization.
Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz.
Refer general questions about the video file to NASA
Headquarters, Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or
Pam Poe, 202/358-0373.
During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will
continue to be posted at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html
For general information about NASA TV see:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/
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end of daily news summary